In 2011, when the U.S. Department of Education revised the regulations governing FERPA to allow third parties to access children’s data without the consent of their parents, the Council of Chief School Officers weighed in. Here is. Comment by Sheila Kaplan, whose organization (educationnewyork.com) is devoted to student privacy issues:
“Here’s Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Comments on 2011 FERPA RULE CHANGE
CCSSO own the Common Core State Standards Copyright with the National Governor’s Association (NGA).
Also:
“The American Council on Education expressed concerns about the FERPA rule change:
The most bizarre was the Head Start opposed the rule change saying they’re under HHS authority, not he USED, and the USED was acting beyond their authority.
HEAD START says US ED acted beyond their authority. This one is interesting.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We are a lawless country and have been so for awhile as if 9-11 does not show that and the taking away of our civil rights and privacy. And Obama has put just that on steroids along with the planned destruction of public education. So why should they care if they do what they are doing? The puppetmasters told them to do it and they are doing it. Technically, we are a fascist country and we are “Exceptionally” good at doing just that.
How does Obama sleep at night?! People marched and died so that somebody like him could be President. I will never understand the psychology of somebody like that, somebody with no core values whatsoever.
He’s a politician, pure and simple.
Correct!
In NYS they changed the regulations back in December so that any school that agrees to work with a student teacher must allow videos of that student teacher’s classroom to be sent to a third party. This was done to pave the way for Pearson to higher anonymous piece work labor to review the videos and score student teacher work.
So much for privacy–of students or student teachers.
Just another brick in the wall–except this one is even more stealth. Parents may not be aware when the video is made; and too many teacher educators and others see the privacy issues with student data, but are silent about this breach.
My friend told a school for ‘scholars’ they couldn’t publish her child’s picture. He is no longer at the school but his picture is on a publication.
You don’t have to report breaches under FERPA. No one has lost a penny FERPA violations since FERPA became law in 1974.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
They say they’re heavily involvement in SUR database development. Worked with WICHE & SHEEO
Click to access nchems.pdf
WESTERN INTERSTATE COMMISSION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION (WICHE)
They say FERPA should LOOSEN Social Security Number restrictions and discuss long term data retention needs.
Click to access wiche.pdf
Of course WICHE is financed by Bill and Melinda Gates. Sadly, the President of Cal State Northridge is on the board of this group.
http://www.wiche.edu/ca
“California participated in a Gates-funded meeting in 2008, which brought together the stewards of the data systems in 14 of the WICHE states for discussions around linking data internally and with other states. A central topic of conversation was how to address the challenges to data sharing presented by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.”
That is insane. They are out of their blessed minds: “Oh yes, you can trust us to just “strip” the SSN from the student record once the research is done.” GTFO with that nonsense! You don’t just play willy nilly with SSNs.
Any idea if and how this was resolved with Head Start? Arne would have already known that Head Start has its own policies under HHS, because he worked closely with the CEO of ECE programs at CPS and she often mentioned that she had little control over what went on in Head Start due to HHS regulations. Plus, Duncan works alongside Kathleen Sebelius (R), Secretary of HHS, so I wonder what, if anything, might have transpired. http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/05/the-case-for-saving-head-start/
I looked but was not able to locate info about an updated privacy policy for Head Start.
“You don’t have to report breaches under FERPA. No one has lost a penny FERPA violations since FERPA became law in 1974.”
I have heard this before and I don’t understand what the point of having FERPA is, if it does not really protect the privacy rights of children and families –especially after Arne took it upon himself to revise the regulations. And why have an act that is just bark and no bite in the first place? None of this makes any sense to me.
Where are the ACLU and Common Cause???
I’ve tried and can’t seem to post to this blog. Third try:
Any idea if and how this was resolved with Head Start? Arne would have already known that Head Start has its own policies under HHS, because he worked closely with the CEO of ECE programs at CPS and she often mentioned that she had little control over what went on in Head Start due to HHS regulations. Plus, Duncan works alongside Kathleen Sebelius (R), Secretary of HHS, so I wonder what, if anything, might have transpired. http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/05/the-case-for-saving-head-start/
I looked but was not able to locate info about an updated privacy policy for Head Start.
“You don’t have to report breaches under FERPA. No one has lost a penny FERPA violations since FERPA became law in 1974.”
I have heard this before and I don’t understand what the point of having FERPA is, if it does not really protect the privacy rights of children and families –especially after Arne took it upon himself to revise the regulations. And why have an act that is just bark and no bite in the first place? None of this makes any sense to me.
Where are the ACLU and Common Cause???
OK, after reviewing the documentation on the EPIC website (the link to it is provided on the other page in the blog regarding FERPA), I see that EPIC filed a lawsuit against the Dept. of Ed regarding this issue.
It looks like the DoE is claiming Chevron deference, which means administrative discretion in interpreting a law that a government agency is charged with administering. But that only applies when the law is ambiguous. I’m no lawyer, but I think EPIC has a pretty solid case, because on the issues that matter most, I don’t think FERPA is ambiguous. Privacy and parental consent are clearly the main concerns of FERPA and I think the revised regulations blatantly violate those rights. At least I hope the court sees it that way, too…
Yes, I hope the courts see it that way too. Glad you found the information. US ED went ahead and ignored Head Start’s comments, as those of many.
Okay, so these organizations spoke out – good for them. But what did they do to raise public awareness and fight for the issue? They knew what was happening and they let it quietly happen with just a peep of protest rather than raising the roof. Color me unimpressed.
These organizations spoke out supporting US ED ‘s changes. The links I have posted on the post about FERPA were not supportive of the changes.
Actually those who spoke out against the changes speak out about the changes every day & continue. They have been years.
They are dedicated about privacy & civil liberties & I am very impressed. I have many more links than those that I have posted on the FERPA page post if you’re interested. If you want to email me I can attach them as files for you.
This isn’t the first rule change. In fact it’s the 2008 rule change that has created much of the situation we’re in today when they expanded the definition of school official.
So was the 2008 rule change that expanded the definition of school official made under Spellings or under Duncan?
Also, just how does that new definition enable school officials to share private records with vendors? (What a tangled web they wove!)
Data collection is as essential to education as it is to medicine… Our citizenry would be outraged if they found our medical data was being sold to private contractors but either don’t know about this sale of school data or don’t see it as a problem… Part of the problem is that many (if not most) parents believe there is such a thing as a “permanent record” that is widely shared with colleges, law enforcement officials, army recruiters, and potential employers… Back in the 60s the HS I attended often made reference to the “permanent record” when a student misbehaved in class, skipped classes, had a bad attendance record, or got into fights… FERPA supposedly clarified which records and information were public and which were private… Thanks to the Obama administration, the “permanent record” is alive and well.
In the 50s, teachers talked about our “permanent record” so much that, in 1st Grade, I asked my mom if she could get a hold of mine so we could play and listen to it together Yeah, the “permanent record” warnings started early, but I thought they were talking about a vinyl disk for record players…
Hearing those threats year after year made me curious, as an educator, so decades later, I requested copies of my permanent record under FERPA. I was surprised to discover that very little information was on there, just final grades and some standardized test scores –which were low-stakes then.
I suspect that what they sent me was incomplete though, since there was a disclaimer attached which indicated something about how, before FERPA, teachers and school officials didn’t know that what they wrote would ultimately be shared with students. No comments were included. Hope that means they destroyed any existing notes! (I doubt it though.)
I started working as an administrator in 1975, shortly after FERPA passed, and the district I worked in at that time went to great pains to get rid of all of the extraneous information that was in student files— but as I moved to other districts in other States I found that not all districts responded as quickly nor in the same way. I know that many parents STILL believe discipline records are forwarded to colleges.
As a tech director at my school, I started noticing our SIS (student information system) was updating more frequently to collect more and more data on students (for the state, IL). For the past few years if students get a detention it is sent to the state. A student can get a detention for not doing their home work two times at our school, each school is different. What is the state doing with this information? Youthful indiscretion is out the door, get a detention in 3rd grade and it REALLY WILL go down on your permanent record and probably be held against you at some future date!
When I was still teaching at the RI School for the Deaf several years ago, we were informed of the seriousness of FERPA at a workshop, and told that we could not so much as put our students’ work on the wall with their full names, or leave a student’s IEP folder on our desk–it had to be locked up so that some maintenance worker or other anonymous person who happened to walk into the classroom wouldn’t know the name of a child who is attending a school for the deaf. How absurd! And now we find out that Rupert Murdoch and his ilk have been successful in getting the DOE to change FERPA (which I thought was federal LAW which could only be changed by Congress) to allow for-profit vendors access to the most personal and confidential information on all school children. The data storage companies themselves say that they can’t confirm the security of the system. This is so outrageous that I’m beside myself. Someone posted here “Where is the ACLU and Common Cause?” Where indeed. I wish Michael Moore would look into this and bring it to the country’s attention.
Get rid of lobbyists!